Posted on 05/05/2008 5:32:15 AM PDT by shove_it
...Spring Hill, Fla.-based Chrysler dealership, Marvin Hedrick has had his fair share of skeptical (and unhappy) clients, especially when he has to turn someone down for an auto loan or break the bad news that they'll have to pay a much higher interest rate than they expected.
It's an issue Hedrick deals with all too often: Car buyers walk into his office with an inflated sense of their creditworthiness and he has to burst their bubble. Recently, a client came in armed with a copy of a credit report that said her score was 640. When Hedrick pulled the report, however, her score was 600. That 40-point reduction in her score meant the difference between qualifying as a prime borrower and paying 7.85% interest and being considered subprime and getting a loan at 11.64%.
"I have to explain to them that [what they have] is not a true score," Hedrick says. "They don't believe me because I work in the car business. But it happens all the time."
These days, hardly anyone questions the power of the almighty credit score. Lenders use it to determine who qualifies for a loan and what interest rate they get, insurers calculate premiums based on it, and even employers make hiring decisions with it in mind. As a result, consumers are flocking to the credit bureaus to buy their scores. Sales of scores, reports and credit-monitoring services to consumers by credit bureaus generated $488 million in revenues in 2006 and are expected to reach $864 million by 2010, according to market research firm TowerGroup.
Problem is, the scores that consumers buy from the credit bureaus or heavily-promoted sites like FreeCreditReport.com or TrueCredit.com — owned by Experian and TransUnion, respectively — are not the same scores that are sold to lenders, landlords, insurers or employers...
(Excerpt) Read more at smartmoney.com ...
Yeah right. Have you seen the discount the hospital offer to insurance companies. They should offer the same to patients instead of billing higher than insurance companies.
I used this one about a month ago for 25% off:
7YRSALE
Don’t know if it still works. If you google others, just keep trying one til they take it.
I've seen the opposite as well. Regardless, pay it, then dispute it. In most cases, you will lose more by ruining your credit than you save by not paying it.
Pay it Hell! They can stick it where the sun doesn't shine or spend the money to come after me. It is the "PAY IT" mindset that has gotten us into this mess. The illusion of free independent minded Americans goes right down the drain every time we run to please bullies and crooks. Our political masters have learned that a majority of Americans are easily intimidated, and now they arrogantly give us a choice of voting for garbage "OR ELSE."
Paying it does not mean you can’t dispute it, sue for it, whatever.
It just means you don’t wreck your credit in the process.
That’s how they win, not you.
The lender could be trying to scam the consumer by using the lowest of a tri-merge report. Happens all the time.
That sounds like the “Vote for Hillary or get Obama” threat. I have never missed a legitimate billing and my credit sources know it. They always offer me their top rates, but I rarely take them up.
If you get late payments and collections, your scores will go down dramatically as sure as rain.
Ohh, does it ever!!! They kept trying to get us to take a loan, but we insisted on paying in full for our last car.
also a dealership BS story.
Dealers rely on “the cookie”. IOW the interest rate people are stupid enough to buy vs the interest rate they actually qualify.
The dealer is then able to pocket the difference as pure profit.
Seems either the dealer is playing games or the credit reporting of scores has a major truth in lending class action in the wings.
Hehe! Once you pay the mob for “protection,” you will always pay the mob. The same goes for the credit agencies. Once you succumb to bogus billings, then you you will always pay the “mob.”
Again - you can always dispute, sue, etc. The point is to not wreck your credit in the meantime. There’s nothing you can do after you haven’t paid it that you can’t do after you haven’t paid it. Only you’re in much worse shape after it’s in collection.
There is no checkbox on FICO for legitimate/illegitimate. If they report a collection, your credit worthiness is greatly damaged unless is it an error and you work to get it removed. Paying it before disputing also removes this great hassle and delay and cost to your credit in the meantime.
This is the way the laws are written. I’m not fond of them either, but until they’re changed, wise people use them wisely.
If you purposely allow a 700 collection, you will most likely pay for that 700 several times over in your credit dealings.
You can always wreck your credit on principle if you want. But know that you’ve won a Pyrrhic victory
*** And no one—NO ONE pays their medical bills, regardless of income level. ***
While we are venting - I am currently involved with a $6 bill for lab work. I paid it 2 months ago according to my bank’s bill pay system. But when I called they said they were a “little behind on posting payments”. They can send out redundant bills and report you to credit agencies but posting payments is low priority. I don’t understand the way they do business.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with a car salesman when I was buying my daughter’s car.
Me: How much is this car?
Him: How much are you looking to spend?
Me: That’s irrelevant. How much is this car?
Him: Do you already have financing or are you looking to finance with us?
Me: That’s also irrelevant. Do you know how much this car is, or should I talk with someone else?
Him: I’ll have to ask a manager. I don’t understand why you won’t tell me how much money you want to spend on a car. That way I can show you which cars meet your budget.
Me: You don’t need to know my budget. I’m asking you about this one car. What is the price?
Him: Well, if you won’t give me any information, I just can’t help you.
And off he stomped. My daughter and I burst out laughing. It was great. Of course, by that time, I’d already figured out his game was to find out how much somebody wanted to spend, then get them into the cheapest possible car for just over that amount of money. That’s why there weren’t any prices listed on any of the cars. We didn’t buy a car there.
“And no one—NO ONE pays their medical bills, regardless of income level”
Don’t make stupid statments!!!
In my 70 years i’ve always paid every bill when received or first available, not when due including medical bills.
http://www.amazon.com/Zymol-12001-Royale-Glaze/dp/B000F3K0T8
Not only is the price ($7,583.00 including a $1,916.00 discount) unreal, but the "related items" shown further down the page are certainly not "G"-rated (unless you count "G-String" rated...).
Even the $20K "Badonkadonk Land Cruiser / Tank"
shown farther down the page fits the "bizarre" category.
Wierd stuff...
Keep in mind . . . this was while I was purchasing a new 2007 vehicle -- six months AFTER this same dealer had spent a lot of time and effort looking all over North America for a 2006 model from the previous year, but to no avail.
If anyone in North Jersey is looking to buy a new or used Ford, drop me a Freep-mail and I'll provide you the contact information for the best car dealer I've ever dealt with!
Then they get out into the real world.....and reality smacks them upside the head. So they go and vote Democrat! Stick it to the Man!
And then she happily flagged you with a "suspicious activity report" to Homeland Security.
When I moved to Los Angeles in ‘98 from Pennsylvania the first thing I did was do to get a new car (sold my truck in PA before moving). Someone at the Beverly Hills Infinity dealer took my Amex number from the credit application and called Amex to report the card “lost” and had a new card FedExed to them (at a different address than the new one I had just called into Amex days before). Fortunately Amex didn’t hold me responsible for the approx. $4k of charges they ran up before I discovered it.
I wasn’t too fond of that dealership, and was happy when they went belly-up.
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